Intermitent white smoke?

[Bldblk]

For the last 500 miles or so i have been experiancing intermitent white smoke and a decrease in mpg. At first i thought it might have been the winterblend diesel causing the loss of mpg. Then i notice the smoke, not often but occasionally. Now after a fresh fill up with quality fuel and diesel clean and still doing the same thing its just getting more frequent.

1. no noticeable loss of power or performance
2. no CEL, WIF, or Drastic change in engine coolant temp
3. all gauges are showing normal operating numbers
4. no coolant in the oil or vise versa
5. also a nice moisture ring has formed around my exhausht tip.

Where do i begin to start to trouble shoot this?

[Rob]

What does it smell like?

[justinmix]

Are you loosing/using any coolant or oil out of the ordinary? If not then it can only be one thing, fuel.

Not sure how many miles are on your truck or if you've ever had any injector work done. If it's all stock first guess would be a possible weak injector. Only thing to do would be to get someone to do injector buzz and cylinder balance tests and see if anything shows up.

How is the power when you cold start it? Does it fire up and run smooth without a lot of white smoking?

If it still has decent power and only white smokes occasionally I wouldn't get to worried about it.

[Rob]

Thanks for the tech info. Its always nice to have a professional around..

[justinmix]

Haha, no problem.

I think I should clarify on my statement of "If it still has decent power and only white smokes occasionally I wouldn't get to worried about it".

The reason I say this is because if it's intermittent, and your not really feeling a miss, then it's going to be very hard to diagnose which injector it would be.

I would first start with checking fuel pressure just to make sure it's good. It probably is, because if you had low fuel pressure you'd have more issues the just the occasional smoke. But it's better to verify this then assume.


Then I would try and get someone to do an injector buzz test and make sure the electrical side is ok. If that passes, then have them do a cylinder contribution test. If it's not acting up at the time of the test it probably won't log you a cylinder fault.

[Bldblk]

no noticable performance loss or stumbles or hiccups. sometimes its starts and idles fine. but when it is smokeing it is alot of smoke. at times the smoke can be really heavy white clouds, other times its real light.

[justinmix]

But you're not using any coolant or excessive amounts of oil?

[Bldblk]

not loosing any coolant or excessive amounts of oil.

[Rob]

Next time you start it and it smokes, go smell it, then let us know if it smelling of raw fuel.